Bob's Birthday/Transcript
WORK IN PROGRESS; NEEDS HUMAN REVIEW [ gunshots, glass shatters ] harold: And now it's time for the show that everybody's talking about -- in no uncertain terms -- and some of them even favorable. A show that lives in the heart of the heartland, where it lives the livers by the bladders of the gall-- what am I saying? Wa-a! I have no idea what! I should write some of this down before the show actually -- anyway, here's the star of "the red green show," my uncle -- red green. Uncle red green. Thank you, harold. Thank you and, uh, welcome to possum lodge. Uh, I should advise you. Just take harold with a grain of salt. In fact, side by side, you can't tell them apart. Although, you know, he is my nephew, and blood is thicker than water, although nothing is quite as thick as harold. Well, I think maybe the audience can easily identify intelligence, eh? For example, this takes intelligence. [ keyboard clacking ] wa-a-a! Operating a digital effects unit. The machine has the intelligence. The operator is a support system. I just don't like getting surprised like that. Not that I'm against surprises. I mean, I've thrown as many buckets of ice water into a sleeping bag as anybody. The trouble starts when maybe a lodge member can't differentiate between a surprise and a prank. Because, you know, if something happens that doesn't involve loss of consciousness or hospitalization, it really is a surprise, as opposed to a prank, and doesn't really have a place in lodge life, as far as I'm concerned. Whereas, like, a prank that maims or kills is everybody's favorite. Well, as usual, you're exaggerating, harold, just like your father did when he got me to hire you. But any stunt that involves either personal injury or property damage makes a heck of a lot more interesting story a couple years down the road, when we're all in our declining years and doing a little more reflecting than shining. Well, I just want you to know that I'm opposed to any childish adventures or -- or irresponsible behavior. Oh, harold, that wedgie didn't hurt that much, did it? Well... Quite a bit, especially if you hook a person's underwear to a power hoist. All right. Maybe we did go a little -- a little too far with that. If you could've seen the look on your face. Hardy-har-har. I took it like a man, didn't I? But if my children don't grow up to be as tall as they should be, I may sue. It's a workday for me, too, harold. Yeah? Yeah, today I'll be testing soil density for the department of natural resources. I just do it on the golf course, you know, to avoid boredom, that sort of thing. Keeps me sharp and more effective as a government official. Wow. That sounds -- I guess "incredible" is the word for that, isn't it? Well, harold sighs you know, in a couple of days, it'll be my birthday. I'll be turning, uh... A year older. Be great if I shot par today, though, huh? Now, that would be a good birthday present. You've never shot par, bob? Well, I have on the scorecard. Just never on the golf course. Wish me luck, harold. It'd be nice -- you know, you don't even have to shoot par. Just be great if you didn't wing your clubs into the lake. The wind did that. I'll be on the golf course all day. You workaholic, you. I think bob's patterned his civil service career after gerald ford. Eddie, I told you not to buy the bikini briefs. I didn't want bob to see me. I think we should have a surprise birthday party for bob. I started on the cake. That's the nose. Whoa! It's not a swimming party, is it, ed? Uncle red, I think a surprise party is an excellent idea. All right, then you try the cake. [ glass shatters, horn honks ] I may have gone a bit too heavy on the prunes. I could prepare a special meal around the campfire, and then afterwards we could all say things about bob. And, you know, he'd think we were kidding. And then we could -- we could divide into groups and do vignettes from famous broadway musicals, like... ♪ o-o-o-o-klahoma ♪ ♪ where the wind comes swirling 'round the plain ♪ what do you think? I think that's the kind of plan that could lead to some fairly major violence. That's what I think. Red, as you know, I am a gourmet cook and a performer of some note. Well, we don't want to hear the note right now, eddie. And I'd be perfectly willing to stage this party. But if someone who doesn't know a petit four from a pâté de foie gras wants to make a suggestion, well, I'm all ears. Harold: Okay. How about this? How about this, right? We get, like, some music videos happening, right? We get a live music rap group doing their thing in the corner. They can be doing that. And we get a laser light show happening. That'd be cool. And then we could order pizzas. Have like 50 pizzas. You could do that. You want to do that? We could do that if you want to do that. Want to do that? Harold, uh, would you mind going down to the lake for a minute? W-what for? To stick your head in it. That was cruel. Not compared to the other things I thought of. Do I have to stick my head right in it? Can I not, you know, just, like, sit real close to the edge? Well, make it the far edge. Wa-a-a! Excellent. Wa-a-a! [ door opens, closes ] well, how about this for a memorable party? We all pile into the r.V., we hit the open road. We go till the gas tank's empty and the holding tank's full. Oh, no, glen, I think we'd have to be going somewhere. Otherwise we wouldn't know when we were lost. Okay. How about augusta, georgia, home of the world-famous masters golf tournament, huh? Do you think bob would maybe enjoy that at all? That's not a party. That's a prize on "the dating game." well, you don't have to go, then. I mean, you can stay here and learn some more show tunes. Well, I think we should just celebrate the birthday the way we celebrate every birthday at the lodge. We just ignore it. I'll see you guys later. Listen, the idea for a party was my idea in the first place. Well, let's have it in the r.V. What's the difference? Because there's no style to that, no panache! I mean, we'd look like a bunch of itinerant worm pickers. Whoa. Hey. Don't bring religion into it, all right? Worm picking isn't a religion. I meant "itinerant." r.V. Guys like me don't like to hear the use of that kind of language. You are so -- hello, harold. Hi. Mr. Miranda, I presume? [ spoons and guitar playing ] ♪ my favorite pants ♪ ♪ I've had them for years ♪ ♪ comfortable like you wouldn't believe ♪ ♪ $13.95 at sears ♪ ♪ since I first got them ♪ ♪ I've gained a few pounds ♪ ♪ now my gut kind of spills over top ♪ ♪ and pushes them down ♪ ♪ my wife says they're too tight ♪ ♪ so I just show her ♪ ♪ they still fit me fine ♪ they're just 8 or 9 inches lower. Ahh. Red: This week on, uh, "handyman corner," we're gonna show you a fabulous, fabulous, uh, lawn-and-garden instrument -- the leaf blower. Now, to me, the leaf blower is the greatest invention since the chain saw or duct tape. Well, not counting twist-off caps. Now, this is too long. We only need a few feet of this, so I'm gonna cut this with some tin snips, but I need to drill a pilot hole first. So I'll just snug her up in the vise and start the pilot hole here. [ clears throat ] maybe I can think of a smarter way to do this. [ sniffs ] no. I-I know what it is. This is metal, and I'm using a wood bit on this. Gosh. [ clears throat ] I should be using a saw. Okay. Now we're gonna need something to... To blow air. Now, I would suggest old man sedgwick, but I do have the environment to think of. So instead, I recommend one of these deals here. This is one of these hot-air dryers that you see in a washroom at a restaurant. You know, I mean, restaurants are always going out of business. You can pick one of these up real cheap. Or if you really want to save a bundle, you can go into a self-serve gas station and just serve yourself. And so, first thing we got to do with this rig before we can use it is, we got to disconnect the heater. Lift the cover off there. Oh, boy, it's like a computer in there. Oh, no, this -- this would be the heater connection here. Yeah, that's good. Okay. We'll pop that back on. And we're ready for our final assembly. Just, uh, smooth it right down, and there you have it. You're ready for autumn. You got your very own one-of-a-kind, homemade leaf blower. And remember, until next time -- if the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy. [ whirring ] [ whirring stops ] uh... [ whirring resumes ] [ whirring stops ] what the heck? [ grinding ] [ spitting, coughing ] "it is summer. "sunbathers lolling in two-piece bathing suits. "the brunette wears hers to get a tan. "the blonde wears hers to get a man. "the redhead wears hers to get whistles. And the bald, fat guy wears his for medical reasons." so now everybody wants to give bob a surprise birthday party. But I'm kind of against it because, you know, first of all, if it's his birthday, he's going to expect something. That's not really gonna be much of a surprise. What I'd rather do is take something like April fools' day and make it a completely different day without telling anybody, and then walk up behind them and pull their pants down on national television. Now, that would be a surprise, right, harold? Right. Yeah, or, say, you know, buster hadfield has a date, and what you do is you put itching powder all over the back seat of his car, huh? That's not only fun, that's a life lesson. If you keep your clothes on, you don't end up scratching. You know, I might consider that an invasion of privacy, uncle red. Oh, harold, you think we should all behave like we're all on "the lawrence welk show." if you were in charge, nobody would ever be allowed to yell, "pile on!" that's boring, harold. Well, maybe I'd rather be boring than to find plums in the toes of my shoes. Has anyone ever really stopped to consider that? Ah. You're a wet blanket. That's another thing. I resented that wet blanket. Oh, relax, harold. Gasoline evaporates. I'll take a prank over a surprise any day. Well, I hope you feel the same way after your lunch break today, uncle red. I'm not eating my lunch, harold. I gave it to helmut. Uh-oh! You know, bob, I-I think that maybe you -- I think maybe you need to unwind a little bit, you know, maybe get some professional help. Or what about taking a year off? Or if you can't do that, bob, I got an idea. How about a party? What if we had a party of some kind? Let me tell you something, red. Yeah. It's my birthday coming up pretty soon. Did -- did you know that? Uh, no, no, I didn't even realize you had a birthday. Well, I wish I didn't. You see, when I was a little boy, my -- my grandmother used to stage these surprise birthday parties for me. Well, that was awful nice of her, wasn't it? I hated them. Everyone shrieking, "surprise!" looking at you, staring right at you to see what your reaction would be. "did we fool you? Was it a surprise?" and you had to be happy. You had to pretend you were happy all the time, no matter how angry you felt, and you got crappy gifts. Why -- why didn't you just tell your grandmother you felt that way? Oh, not my grandmother. No way. My grandmother could hurt you if she wanted to. Yeah, once I saw her bring a postman to his knees just with a pair of salad tongs. No, I stayed quiet -- and healthy. I just pretended I enjoyed myself. That's why to this day I hate surprises. Just hate them. That's why I took a job with the government. That's -- that's too bad, bob. Yeah. That's why I like golf, you know? If you do everything right, everything just goes exactly as planned. I suppose. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [ sneezes ] [ water splashes ] oh, my god! It's gone into the water hole! [ film projector clicking ] red: This next portion is brought to you by the good people who make bandages and splints and iodine. "adventures with bill." now, bill had made himself a pair of stilts. We're gonna try them out today. So, he wanted to start over here. [ thud ] ohh! Maybe if he'd told me he was gonna stop. Aah. So, a good start. You know, I think it was, uh, sigmund freud who said if you don't go through some developmental stages -- the stages of development are in kind of an order when you're a kid -- if you don't go through them in the right order or if you miss one, then, uh, he's got to go through it later in life. And, of course, when he said it, it wasn't quite that clear. But, uh, I don't think bill ever experienced stilts as a kid, so he wanted to try them out as an adult. I think it's more of a kid thing, because I think when you get to be -- you have too much weight, and he's trying this technique, and I was afraid he was gonna back us all the way to town. Then we tried this, where I would hold the weight. And, boy, this is not only heavy, but not the greatest view you'd ever want to have. But I got him up there. Okay, okay, okay, okay. No, no, no, no. But the thing with bill is, he just doesn't give up until he's really, really hurt somebody. He gets something to stand on, and then he -- oh. Well, that's -- that's good. Thank you, bill. Thank you. There goes our matching furniture. Get that off him there. Then we got some garbage cans. Thought he could stand on them. Maybe that would give him a leg up, so to speak. But he got one, and he got kind of carried away, and he ended up sticking one of the legs of the stilts right into the garbage can. And then he -- trying to get that out, and he didn't know how he was gonna do that. And then he'd only put one nail in where the feet thing goes, so instead of up there -- and then down -- oh, bill. Oh, oh, oh, oh. And he wedged right in there, and the inside was kind of wet, so it kind of sealed off. [ squeaking ] [ pop! ] yeah. We got her off there. Now he's putting a few extra nails in, just to be -- just to be safe. And then -- oh, now, what he did here was he added length to the -- to the stilts with rope and duct tape. I think he went up about 12 feet. He says to me, "if you're gonna go up, you might as well go up in a big way," which I never really understood. So he's gonna step onto these from the van. You know, whenever bill gets around my van, something bad happens. I don't know what it is. Kind of a karma thing. [ glass shatters ] or a truck-ma thing. Thanks, bill. He gets up onto the stilts there, and I'm sensing impending doom. I leave the area. But he's -- he's doing okay. Bit by bit. He's all right. He's all right. And unfortunately, what happens a lot of times when you get up that kind of height... Aaaaaah! Ohh! ...Is the gravity takes over. But, uh, he's all right. He's okay. He'll live to stilt another day. Go lie down, bill. "it is summer. "a muscle-bound body builder kicks sand in my face. "I challenge him to a fight. "later that day, upon regaining consciousness, I realize how smart gandhi was." well, the guys have heard that bob hates surprise parties, so now they want to give him one more than ever, you know, since this is unofficial April fools' day. But I guess at tonight's meeting, I better let the cat out of the bag. Well, you did that last week. Ha ha ha. That was a badger, harold. And I meant figuratively this time. So, I'll just -- I'll just announce that we're not gonna have a surprise party for bob, and then the guys will know that they're free and clear to set his golf clubs on fire or call his boss and tell him how many rounds he plays on company time -- and bob will remember that. Uncle red, I mean, if this is something you do to a fellow lodge member, how are you really any different than his enemies? You know, that's what I don't understand. Well, uh, the enemies would do it with malice, harold. I mean, there'd be a mean edge to the laughter. We're just kidding around. [ screeching ] oh, that's the call to the meeting. Oh, uncle red, it's time to go. I hope you know what you're doing. No problem, harold. I'll just zip down there and let everybody know what's going on, get everything back on track. When the guys were trying to do something nice for bob, I'm sure they meant well. They just lost sight of their priorities. [ screeching continues ] [ indistinct conversations ] all rise. [ clears throat ] all: Quando omni flunkus, moritati. The floor recognizes glen braxton. Thank you, red. I just want to happily report that the r.V. Has been serviced. It's all ready to roll on our celebration that we discussed. If my brother possums will vote on my suggestion, uh, you know, as per, uh... Yes, well, uh, I too am prepared. Things have been cooked, plans have been planned, and I have some supporters out there, who I'm sure will go along with my I-- uh, c-celebration ideas. I think I'd better announce to everybody out there -- just for your information, and especially to a couple or three guys up here -- that the proposed gathering has been ix-nayed. [ all grumbling ] gatherings? Celebrations? What are we talking about here, huh? What are you guys up to? You're not planning a surprise birthday party for me, are you? Really? Well, I hate surprise birthday parties. I told you that, didn't I, red? Yes, you did, bob, and that's why we're not having one. [ all shouting ] oh. Oh. Well, all right, then. [ chuckles ] it's not like I was expecting one or anything like that. Well, they're always a disappointment, you know... I would imagine. Uh... I lied about my grandmother. That's right, red. I've -- I've never had a party. Oh, boy. Never had a grandmother. But -- but I can imagine what they're like -- uh, the parties, I mean. You know, stupid balloons, some crummy clowns, lousy magicians, that sort of thing. Oh, no! Never, ever had the corner piece of cake -- you know, the one with the extra icing on it. My -- my father used to say that parties weren't dignified. That only middle-class people had birthdays. And then my mother, you know, she hated the idea of growing older, so she just drank heavily. I've never pinned the tail on anything! [ sobs ] well, bob, I wanted to throw you a party, and so did eddie! Yeah. But red said no. Yeah. Red -- red -- red killed it. [ all shouting ] all right, all right. Just a minute. Hold on, hold on. Now, bob? [ sobbing ] yeah? Were you or were you not expecting a surprise party? And be honest. Be honest. No! Well, okay. Yeah, a little one. Just because you were asking me all about the parties and everything, red. And everyone else out there was wondering what size golf shoes I wore and stuff like that, so it was a bit of a giveaway. I thought, you know, there'd be a little thing. All right, then. All right, then. So, not having a surprise party would be a surprise, wouldn't it? Well, I-I guess. Okay! So that's a surprise. So, all those in favor of giving bob a surprise on his birthday, say, "aye." aye! Aye! Aye! Aye! Well, there you go, huh? No party it is. Eh? All together now. Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! [ laughter and applause ] I see. You're kidding me, right? That's very funny. That's very good. No, no. No, no, no. No, we're not kidding. We're not kidding. That's it. That's it. Any other -- any other business on the agenda there, bill? No? Oh, okay. So, why don't we call on eddie here to supply the evening's entertainment? And congratulations, bob. That's great. Okay, eddie. Here we go. Eddie! Shh! Eddie's up, eddie's up. Please. Eddie's up. Shh! Well, live and learn. Live and learn. The guys thought they could, uh, pull a prank on bob by having a party for him that would make him feel awkward and embarrass him. I managed to do all that just by telling him there was gonna be a party. Just with a few simple words, I reduced a grown man to tears. Now, that's a prank. And you know, I-I guess the ability to understand people and what makes them tick is the mark of a true leader. Anyway, if my wife is watching, I'll be coming straight home after the meeting. And please don't have any surprises for me in bed tonight. Or pranks. I certainly don't have any for you. So, until next time, on behalf of myself and harold and the whole gang up here at the lodge, keep your stick on the ice. ♪ I saw her walking down the meadow ♪ ♪ her little dress on and an attitude ♪ ♪ and I said, "hey, baby ♪ ♪ "hey, baby, it's you ♪ ♪ "it's you ♪ ♪ hey, baby, it's you" ♪